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Elon Musk explains the delay for Tesla’s autonomous coast-to-coast trip
Elon Musk has finally explained why the company ultimately delayed its 2017 plan for a coast-to-coast autonomous drive, and why he stands firm on Tesla’s three-pronged Autopilot approach for full self-driving over LiDAR technology.
During the Q&A portion of Tesla’s Q4 earnings call, Romit Jitendra Shah of Nomura Instinet asked Musk for any updates on the company’s plans for a fully autonomous coast-to-coast drive. Responding to the inquiry, the Musk explained that Tesla is focused on developing a full self-driving suite that would work on all roads under any conditions — something that would have been compromised had Tesla forced the feat last year.
“We could have done the coast-to-coast drive, but it would have required too much specialized code to effectively game it or make it somewhat brittle and that it would work for one particular route, but not the general solution. So I think we would be able to repeat it, but if it’s just not any other route, which is not really a true solution,” Musk said.
When asked about the timeline for the coast-to-coast autonomous drive, the Tesla CEO stated that it might happen in three months, or “six months at the outside.” Musk further stated that the feature would be available for Model S, X, and 3 customers who purchased the Full Self-Driving (FSD) upgrade for their vehicles. The CEO did not confirm, however, if the feature would be rolled out to customers immediately after the coast-to-coast drive is accomplished, or if customers would have to wait before being able to access the feature.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Musk’s statements about FSD, however, came from David Tamberrino of Goldman Sachs. During the Q&A session, Tamberrino asked Musk about his comments on LiDAR technology, a particularly prominent feature of Tesla’s rivals in the self-driving field. Responding to the inquiry, Musk was firm in his stance that LiDAR is not needed for Tesla’s vehicles to achieve fully autonomous driving, even going so far as to state that rivals being dependent on the technology might be making a grave mistake.
“In my view, it is a crutch that will drive companies to a local maximum that they will find very difficult to get out of. They’re going to have a whole bunch of expensive equipment, most of which makes the car expensive, ugly and unnecessary. And I think they will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage,”
Musk further explained that utilizing sophisticated radar equipment is a far better option for FSD. Tesla is steadfast in using its three-pronged approach featuring redundant forward cameras, forward radar, and near-field ultrasonics will be key to the eventual mastery of autonomous driving.
Musk reaffirmed his stance on using this technology, as it allows vehicles to “see” through snow, rain, dust, and fog — conditions that even experienced drivers find difficult to drive on. Overall, Musk stated that he is optimistic about the development of Tesla’s autonomous driving suite. While Tesla’s CEO admitted that progress has been slow, he asserted that when the company achieves FSD, it would be something truly remarkable.
“It’s also one of those things that’s kind of exponential where it doesn’t seem like much progress, and suddenly, ‘wow.’ It will seem like well this is a lame driver. (Then,) like okay, that’s a pretty good driver. (Then,) like holy cow, this driver’s good,” Musk said.
It’s worth noting that Musk also stated that his beliefs in FSD, LiDAR, and radar technology might be proven wrong in the future. Musk did assert, however, that he is confident in his belief that Tesla’s non-LiDAR approach is the correct way to go.
Now perhaps I am wrong. In which case, I’ll look like a fool. But I am quite certain that I am not,” Musk said.
In a lot of ways, Musk’s statements about LiDAR and the delayed autonomous coast-to-coast drive makes perfect sense. As we noted in a previous report, Tesla’s focus on FSD technology is quite different than its competitors, in the way that the company is attempting to create a system that works under any conditions in any location. The leaders in the field, such as Waymo and GM, on the other hand, are pursuing something different, creating a system that works perfectly in a pre-programmed, set route.
Tesla is looking to expand into a new Asian market, strengthening its presence in a region that has been bullish on electric vehicles as a whole.
Tesla officially filed to establish a subsidiary of its business in Vietnam, a report from Reuters suggests. Tesla named the entity “Tesla Motors Vietnam Limited Liability Company.”
The planned entrance into the Vietnamese market is a good sign and move for Tesla, as it has become one of the fastest-growing EV markets in Southeast Asia. It is already among the leaders in the region in both volume and electrification rate. In the first half of this year, Vietnam led Southeast Asia in battery-electric passenger car sales at about 116,000 units, up about 71 percent year over year.
Currently, Vietnamese EV drivers rely on VinFast’s V-Green network, which has about 150,000 ports, but these are primarily reserved for VinFast vehicles. Public third-party charging is fragmented and unreliable for those who do not own chargers that are dedicated to a certain manufacturer’s vehicles.
Tesla has had mixed results in Asia as a whole, and as China remains the core part of its story in Asia, the company is evidently working on expanding its footprint on the continent. Tesla’s domestic retail deliveries fell about 12 percent year over year through the first eight months of 2026.
Model Y remains a standout individual product, holding its position as one of, if not the, best-selling vehicles in the world. However, Model 3 has been weaker than it has been in past years.
Gigafactory Shanghai, the company’s Chinese production facility, still performs very well. Wholesale volumes in terms of exports have more than doubled and now exceed domestic retail sales; Giga Shanghai builds vehicles for Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other markets. South Korea has been an explicit bright spot, with registrations doubling year-to-date and Tesla frequently appearing as the top imported brand.
Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done
Tesla’s entrance into Vietnam signals a broader effort to take over the Asian market and grab more market share from rivals.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s companies made up with Apple but OpenAI still on the hook
Elon Musk’s X Corp and SpaceXAI dropped their Apple antitrust suit, leaving OpenAI as defendant.
X Corp and SpaceXAI, Elon Musk’s social platform and AI venture, have dropped Apple from the antitrust lawsuit that they filed against the iPhone maker and OpenAI last year. In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, attorneys for X and SpaceXAI moved to dismiss the Apple portion of the case, first reported by Reuters. The filing does not explain why the companies are dropping Apple or say whether a settlement was reached.
X and SpaceXAI say they intend to keep pursuing the case against OpenAI, which remains a defendant. That resolves the dispute with one company while leaving the core allegation intact against the other, with no public accounting of what changed in between.
The lawsuit dates to August 2025, when xAI and X sued Apple and OpenAI, arguing that Apple’s decision to make ChatGPT the only generative AI chatbot built into iOS gave OpenAI an unfair structural advantage. The complaint claimed ChatGPT controlled roughly 80 percent of the chatbot market at the time, while Grok held only a few percent. It sought billions of dollars in damages and asked the court to unwind the arrangement.
Elon Musk’s xAI and X file antitrust suit against Apple and OpenAI over AI exclusivity
The filing followed weeks of Musk publicly complaining that Grok and X weren’t appearing in Apple’s “Must Have” App Store section, though Grok ranked second in the Productivity category and X ranked first in News at the time. He accused Apple of “playing politics” and warned of immediate legal action before following through days later.
Apple and OpenAI tried to get the case thrown out, but a federal judge denied both motions in November, ruling the dispute was better suited to summary judgment than an early dismissal. That decision sent the case into discovery, which is presumably what led to Monday’s filing.
Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either 𝕏 or Grok in your “Must Have” section when 𝕏 is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?
Are you playing politics? What gives? Inquiring minds want to know. https://t.co/3wenLZGtwG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2025
The timing is notable given how Musk’s sentiment toward Apple has shifted, with Musk noting that he was open to letting Grok power a revamped Siri after a user suggested Apple replace its aging assistant with xAI’s model.
xAI, the AI venture Musk folded into X Corp last year, has since combined with SpaceX under the SpaceXAI brand. That structure now puts X, Grok and SpaceX’s rocket and satellite businesses under one roof as Musk pushes his AI ambitions beyond chatbots.
OpenAI remains the sole defendant going forward, and Musk’s companies have not said if there’s any changes to those original claims. Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the filing.
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Why SpaceX is finishing another space-internet system that isn’t Starlink
SpaceX launched three final O3b mPower satellites Sunday, finishing a lesser known SES satellite network.
SpaceX had an 87 minute window opening at 2:49 p.m. Eastern on Sunday to fly a Falcon 9 out of Cape Canaveral carrying the final three satellites for SES’s O3b mPower constellation, a project that has taken more than a decade to finish since Boeing and SES first signed SpaceX on for the work.
Unlike the thousands of Starlink satellites SpaceX has stacked into orbit over the years, O3b mPower flies in a different neighborhood entirely. The three new satellites, tagged F11, F12 and F13, are headed for medium Earth orbit at roughly 5,000 miles up, more than ten times higher than Starlink’s shell around 340 miles but still a small fraction of the 22,000 miles where old school geostationary satellites sit. That middle position is the whole point, because a satellite that far out needs far fewer siblings to blanket the globe than a low orbit constellation does. Essentially, SES only needed 13 satellites total to build a network offering quick, steady service that used to require thousands of spacecraft.
With most people having heard plenty about Starlink and almost nothing about O3b mPower, SES and SpaceX already blend the two networks for some customers. Both SpaceX and SES sell satellite broadband, but they’re aimed at different buyers. Starlink is built for volume, direct to consumers, RVs, homes, small businesses, plus a growing aviation and maritime business. O3b mPower skips consumers entirely and sells enterprise grade connectivity to airlines, cruise lines, offshore energy operators, telecoms needing backhaul, and governments, priced and provisioned more like a dedicated circuit.
A 2023 partnership lets cruise ships combine Starlink’s speed with O3b mPower’s steady capacity depending on what a ship needs at a given moment. Sunday’s completed 13 satellite constellation effectively finishes the medium orbit half of that pairing, years after.
Sunday’s mission was already a something on SpaceX’s manifest well before O3b mPower entered the picture. This flight marked its 29th trip to orbit, a history that includes two crewed Axiom missions, the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope and 22 separate Starlink batches. SpaceX has landed boosters on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas so often that Sunday’s touchdown attempt, if it went as planned, was set to be the 661st successful Falcon booster landing to date.
For a company that pushed the Starlink constellation past 11,000 satellites back in August, almost entirely through bulk launches from California, Sunday’s flight was a reminder that SpaceX’s schedule still has room for someone else’s satellites too. SES gets a finished network built for a narrower set of customers, and Falcon 9 gets one more line on an already long resume.
Tesla looks to expand into new Asian market, strengthening presence
Elon Musk’s companies made up with Apple but OpenAI still on the hook
